2014-11-01

Kurdish Protest

I am very glad that the Kurds in Kobane now have access to heavy weaponry from Iraqi Kurdistan. Hopefully now ISIS will be rolled back swiftly.

There was a protest at Sydney Town Hall today (2014-11-01) at 2pm which I decided to attend. I would say that over 50% of it was in English, so I could understand. I joined in saying slogans, but not the Kurdish slogans. The slogans were things like "save Kobane" and "down down ISIS" and "save the women", and "save the children" and "save the minorities". Unfortunately there was also a small amount of anti-Turkish sentiment. I didn't join in the slogans against Turkey. Also there was a speaker from the "Socialist Alliance", and flyers from "Green Left". As a right-wing pro-capitalist person I don't like being associated with such groups.

Someone was filming it and when they approached me I gave the "laban" sign. I was wearing my headband with "democracy" (in Chinese) on the front. I stayed for about 1 hour after the politics seemed to be over and there was (presumably Kurdish) dancing going on. I also found out the organizer's web page by approaching a woman who had used the megaphone.

I hope the Kurds can stop being enemies with the Turks. The Iraqi Kurds have shown that it is possible to have good relations with the Turks. Turkey is a long-standing NATO ally, and has done quite a lot that we have asked of it, even though they had grave reservations about it. E.g. they allowed western planes to use Turkish bases to patrol the no-fly zone in Iraqi Kurdistan. And they provided sanctuary for both Iraqi and Syrian Kurds fleeing their own countries. And they have allowed Iraqi Peshmerga to cross their territory to get to Kobane. And they now seem to be open to Iraqi Kurdistan declaring independence. I hope the Kurds can respect the fact that we have a long-standing alliance with Turkey and thus Turkey's interests are our interests too. I believe we can get a united Kurdistan after Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran all join the European Union and NATO. Getting people into NATO is a slow process, and if the Kurds are impatient, they will lose their western allies and likely be clobbered (with Turkey's western allies doing nothing) by Turkey. Also note that no-one has an inherent right to secede from a country based on race or religion. They do have a right to secede from a dictatorship, if they plan to replace the dictatorship with a rational, humanist, non-subjugating government instead. But Turkey is not a dictatorship. Also the PKK is dogmatic (follows the communist dogma), not rational, so would be WORSE than what Turkish Kurds have now.